NTP boot at start on bbone black

[Paul Mather]

On Jan 10, 2017, at 3:32 PM, Ian Lepore <ian at freebsd.org> wrote:

> On Tue, 2017-01-10 at 12:26 -0800, jungle Boogie wrote:
>> Sorry, forgot a subject!
>> 
>> On 10 January 2017 at 12:26, jungle Boogie <jungleboogie0 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> Hi All,
>>> 
>>> Running latest 12-current snapshot on a beagle bone black:
>>> % uname -a
>>> FreeBSD beaglebone 12.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 12.0-CURRENT #0 r311461:
>>> Fri
>>> Jan  6 03:13:01 UTC 2017
>>> root at releng3.nyi.freebsd.org:/usr/obj/arm.armv6/usr/src/sys/BEAGLEB
>>> ONE
>>>  arm
>>> 
>>> I have ntp setup to start at boot:
>>> % cat /etc/rc.conf
>>> hostname="beaglebone"
>>> ifconfig_DEFAULT="DHCP"
>>> sshd_enable="YES"
>>> sendmail_enable="NONE"
>>> sendmail_submit_enable="NO"
>>> sendmail_outbound_enable="NO"
>>> sendmail_msp_queue_enable="NO"
>>> growfs_enable="YES"
>>> ntpd_enable="YES"
>>> 
>>> And yet, no ntp process is running.
>>> 
>>> % ntpq -p
>>> ntpq: read: Connection refused
>>> 
>>> 
>>> What's the trick to get ntp to start at boot to sync time?
>>> 
>>> Thanks!
> 
> 
> Add ntpd_sync_on_start=YES and it should work.  Ntpd is most likely
> panicking and exiting because it's afraid to step the clock more than
> 1000 seconds, which is needed on systems that don't have a battery-
> backed clock and start up with a time far in the past.  Using the sync
> on start option gives ntpd permission to step the clock any amount it
> needs to, just one time at startup.


As an alternative, I'm using the net/ntimed package on my BeagleBone Black and other FreeBSD/arm systems.  It's lightweight, reliable, and easy to use if all you want to do is keep your clock synchronised with other NTP hosts on the network.

Cheers,

Paul.